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Ask this old house

Anyone see Ask This Old House this week? Tom S. had a crack joist to fix. The jacked it out and used a joisthanger to fix it. All well and good, but before he jacked it up he put White WOOD GLUE in the crack. Is that ridiculous or what?

Tha is what Tom said it was

Sure glue is stronger than the wood. That is way when you have a failure it rips the glue and a nanometer of wood off, thus failing right where it did last time. But it seems several on this thread can not grasp that, how sad for thenm and their clients.

In addition, he used a joist hanger, you think the joist hanger is the fix in this case? Ya think? Then again we have those on thiis thread using duct tape for such a repair.

I guess I get double laughs from the show. The silliness of the repair on the show and the show on this thread. Pretty sad.

I didn't see the show, but I

I didn't see the show, but I have great respect for Tom Silva's knowledge and experience. I really doubt he would use a method that wouldn't work.

Could it be that the split started at the end of the joist where it was maybe nailed into the rim with nails only on the upper half of the joist? If so, a joist hanger would definitely help, and the glue joint would be effective.

OTOH, if the split happened because of wood grain running to the edge of th joist, I doubt if the glue and joist hanger would help much. Then again, I've got to think that Tom knows at least as much as I do, and would be aware of the the conditions affecting the fix he he chose.

EDIT: I was able to stream the show on PBS.org, and it's plain to me that Tom's fix was not primarily the glue--that was just a bit of extra insurance. The real fix was the joist hanger because the joist originally had been notched such that the top half was resting in a corresponding notch in a beam.

I went and watched the video

I went and watched the video and think the repair he made was fine. I had assumed the joist was split in the middle. iBut it was a notched joist that cracked at the notch. He jacked it up and installed a joist hanger under the end attached to the beam. I'm still not sure why he bothered with the white wood glue since it provides no real strength at all. I might do the same thing just to make it look nice but the wood glue had no effect on the structural repair at all.

Florida Licensed Building Contractor, 40 years experience in commercial remodeling, new homes, home remodeling and repairs and all types building maintenance.